Land of prom­ise

Grass looks green for CHC’s promis­ing filly

IT’S rare for top jockey Hugh Bow­man to at­tend a set of pro­vin­cial bar­rier tri­als but there he was at Gos­ford last Tues­day rid­ing three China Horse Club (CHC) owned two-yearolds among his book of five mounts. GRASS­LANDS (F Snitzel x Elu­sive Won­der), un­placed at three ca­reer starts, opened the in­nings for the young­sters when lead­ing from the get go and she wasn’t knocked about by Hugh to record a soft win.

How­ever the trio be­hind her are def­i­nite “fol­low me” — LOHAN PRINCESS, DREAM CHARGE and LA BIERE CHOISIE all raced greenly but found the line strongly.

Un­raced SASSO CORBARO (F All Too Hard x Furline) con­tin­ued her su­perb trial form with a neck vic­tory after sit­ting fourth fence be­fore find­ing a gap at the 300m.

The ch­est­nut oozes class and I loved her fi­nal 75m when given a shake up by HB. Run­ner-up POWER COM­MAND ran on strongly un­der the guid­ance of a light­weight rider.

Mem­o­ries would have been flood­ing back for Hugh when can­ter­ing NA­TION­AL­ITY to the gates for the next heat.

The colt by Com­mands is a half-brother to Sa­man­tha Miss who he pi­loted to so many Group 1 wins in­clud­ing the 2008 VRC Oaks.

Na­tion­al­ity was a brave sec­ond to the Paul Perry trained SAUSILITO (G Se­bring x Free Spir­ited) who car­ried blink­ers and fought back with pur­pose after sit­ting in the “death seat’. An­other CHC en­trant LEAGUE OF NA­TIONS was given a rel­a­tively quiet time in third po­si­tion.

The ses­sion opened with three di­vi­sions for Open horses over 1000m and tough sprinter OX­FORD POET indicated he is on song for a suc­cess­ful win­ter with an all the way win.

The baldy faced ch­est­nut was un­der se­vere re­straint and de­fied two fast closers — BASTIA and REACH FOR HEAVEN.

KANGURU and EAST­ERN PAR­ADISE were the other two “five fur­long” win­ners with hon­ourable men­tions to SOUND PROPO­SI­TION and SEE THE SHOW. Back on Jan­uary 21 SPEND­ING TO WIN (2nd 0.2 len) and STAR CROSSED (last 2.8len) com­peted in the Wilkes Qual­ity (1000m) at Rand­wick and they were the win­ners of sep­a­rate 800m Open heats at Gos­ford.

Star Crossed led and won by a space while Spend­ing To Win was just given slight nudge by young Hey­wood.

Both are in the sure win soon cat­e­gory.

A cou­ple of Kris Lees team won’t be Maidens for much longer judg­ing by their trial wins.

BOLD CHANCE (by Bryannbo’s Gift) has only raced once for a fourth on the Beau­mont last year but boy

did he change gears at the 100m.

BIS­CUIT TIME is a jump and run type who looks ideally placed with 4kg claimer Louise Day on board in the opener at Cess­nock to­day.

Oh, by the way, there was a stand­out trial be­hind Bis­cuit Time. ALL STAND, the win­ner of two tri­als in 2016, un­wound a pow­er­ful fin­ish to run third ... and he is by I Am In­vin­ci­ble!

Pic Grant Guy

Grass­lands looked the goods when tak­ing out a trial at Gos­ford last Tues­day